


Recalls

by chronicAngel



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Engagement, F/M, POV Third Person, Rings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-31
Updated: 2018-01-31
Packaged: 2019-03-11 23:16:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13534596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicAngel/pseuds/chronicAngel
Summary: "Hey Tenten," he slurs around his mouthful of instant ramen, "that ring is kinda manly, don't you think?"





	Recalls

**Author's Note:**

> This doesn't it into any of my actual Modern AUs, either that I have posted or that are in development.

She sits at their usual table in the corner of the cafeteria, which happens to be the only one big enough to seat their whole group. Not everyone has taken their seats, of course, with Ino still dragging Shikamaru and Chōji back through one of the lines to get something healthier for lunch, Sasuke and Sakura off in the library (she's not sure who's convincing who to take a break from cramming today), and Sai and Shino still idling in line while they talk about... something. Tenten has always chosen to avoid considering what those two talk about, as she's sure it's something creepy or gross or wildly inappropriate.

Lee sits to her left, though, offering her worried side-eyes while Hinata is sandwiched between Naruto and Kiba, who seem to have started some sort of eating contest. She supposes that with Sasuke being occupied, Naruto is left with the Inuzuka as a fallback rival until the Uchiha arrives, pink-haired "not a girlfriend" in tow. She's barely touched her chow mein, poking at a piece of chicken with one chopstick without any real effort to look like she's considering eating it and relying on the boys' distraction to be left alone about it. Chow mein, like most food from her native Chinese culture, is one of her favorite lunches, and something she frequently orders from the little Chinese restaurant in the corner of the cafeteria since Neji.

"Hey Tenten," he slurs around his mouthful of instant ramen, "that ring is kinda manly, don't you think?"

It startles her out of her own zoning out, and she realizes she's been playing with the thick band on her right hand. Hinata elbows him in the ribs in an uncharacteristic show of ferocity while she glares (though it seems more like compassion when her light eyes-- _just like his_ \-- settle on Tenten, soft) and Kiba drops the piece of jerky he had previously been holding between his teeth. Lee, for his part, just continues to watch her with that worried, gentle expression.

She swallows with a dry mouth and tries her best to smile at the blond, resting her hands flat against the table-- there's a ring on the fourth finger of each one, the right a simple thick, gold band that's slightly too big for her finger so she's taken to playing with it absentmindedly, the left a more closely-fitting rose gold braid with a small polished jade.

She tries not to let the random and loaded question throw her back into two years ago when she was a newly-engaged eighteen-year-old, when she shared an apartment with the only other woman at the table's cousin and was just starting out in college and was still trying to grow past her once-famous parents' reputation. She'd met Hyūga Neji in middle school when she decided by chance to join a Bujinkan dojo she passed by in seventh grade. Her mom saved for months to afford it, his family owned it. She met Lee at the same dojo, and learned that he went to the same school as her while Neji went to an old and prestigious private school on the nicer side of town that his family had been attending for hundreds of years.

"Yeah, I guess it kinda is," she croaks after a minute, and forces herself to pick up the chopsticks and eat even if it's only to serve as a distraction from this conversation and not for sustenance. It doesn't help. She already recalls when he asked her out when they were fourteen, entirely stiff and formal, and just _happened_ to mention on their first date that the private high school he would be attending (just as old and prestigious as his middle school) had a wonderful martial arts program and a scholarship program he was sure she could get into, if that was something she was interested in. She recalls when he finally gave her his phone number that night (and she imagines it only took him so long because Lee talked about how often she texted him random nonsense in the middle of the night because she thought it was funny and Neji had a strict sleep schedule).

She recalls when they texted each other at the same time saying they got into the same college when they were seventeen, both having heard the other was planning to attend but wanting to surprise them. She recalls not even considering filling out an application for a dorm (something she now has and shares with the thick-browed boy next to her in the cafeteria, which feels so far away) as she started looking for a job so they could afford to find an apartment together. She remembers him proposing on her eighteenth birthday, casual and as though he was barely thinking about it in total contrast to the way he asked her on their first date as opposed to making a whole show of it like she might have expected him to do.

She recalls getting a call from Lee at three in the morning to find she'd missed four from the nearby hospital. She recalls the horror when the doctors told her that he'd been in surgery for an hour when she did get to the hospital, running two red lights, and that if he did survive (which was incredibly unlikely) he would be paralyzed for the rest of his life from where pieces of glass and metal completely pierced through his stomach and spine. She recalls the fact that he didn't even _drive_ , that he'd simply been out with Hinata and shoved her out of the way and threw himself in front of a fucking _bus_ when she was almost hit, and that he didn't skid to a halt until the bus slammed into another car and he was sandwiched between them at 15 miles per hour. She recalls a nurse handing her his engagement ring when she arrived saying it wasn't allowed in the operating room.

"Why do you always wear that thing, anyway?" Naruto says, and doesn't wait even a moment before continuing, "I heard that gay people wear rings on their right hand to show they're in a closed relationship... But you wear one on both hands, don't you Tenten-chan?"

Lee finally pulls his eyes away from where he has been staring at her face to look at Naruto. "It is a most painful memory for all of us, Naruto, and I would not be surprised if Tenten did not wish to talk about it." Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura didn't join their tight knit group until the next year, and the memory still stings, so she's not surprised he didn't hear about it. After all, that's the day she lost a lover, Lee lost a best friend, Hinata lost a cousin, and Kiba's friend was almost hit by a bus.

"One isn't mine," she finally whispers, and she feels her heart breaking in her chest as she admits the harsh truth.

Naruto only serves to look more confused by this. "What do you mean it isn't yours? Did you steal it or something?" He squints down at her finger suspiciously now, likely scrutinizing the small details like how it's at least two sizes too big for her.

When she'd gotten home that night, she'd been so upset that she punched her couch until her fingers were swollen, and the ring-- the only thing she had left of him-- was almost too tight.

"It was... my fiancé's," she allows after a minute, but still feels distinctly like her words are choking her. She cuts the blond off before he has a chance to continue this time, eyes glued to the chow mein in front of her. "This one, the pretty one with the jade, was mine," she says, holding her left hand up as though to demonstrate. She holds the right up now, eyes misty. "This was Neji's. I wanted to match, but he said he preferred the simpler one. He was never one for showing off..."

To her surprise, it's Kiba who rests a hand on her shoulder when her expression becomes downcast, tears slipping down round cheeks. She looks up, startled, to find that Hinata stares at her hands, folded in her lap, and Lee is still watching her as though trying to figure out if and when he needs to step in.

"Don't let the idiot get to you," he offers, gesturing at Naruto. "That shit's personal. You don't have to open up about it if you aren't ready to." Eyes still watering, she nods and sniffs. It has only been two years since Neji's passing, and she knows she is not ready to talk about it yet, let alone with someone she can hardly say she knows like Uzumaki Naruto, who seems to have a constant air of optimism about him that can feel off-putting when it comes to serious and emotional talks. She chooses to leave explaining what happened to Neji to Hinata, and continues her game of staring at her chow mein until her next class, which she skips to visit the only person she can talk to about this.

"Can you imagine if we switched for just a moment?" She starts, staring at the hastily purchased flowers that rest in her lap. Lotuses have always felt fitting when she is visiting him, and it isn't just because Lee has been comparing himself to a lotus since they were thirteen. In Japan, his native country, they mean _Far from the one he loves_ , and of course, the symbolism isn't completely lost on her. In her own native country of China, a lotus with one leaf and a bud, like all of the collection that currently rests in the folds of her dress, represents a complete union. "I mean... if I was the one who jumped in front of a bus and you were the one asleep in the apartment. You wouldn't have slept through the calls..." She laughs.

She recalls the doctors telling her that she wasn't a viable candidate for a blood transfusion when he was losing blood quickly and _somehow_ , as a true sign that somewhere God was laughing at her, they were out of his blood type, as Neji was O- and she is B+. It's not lost on her that if she were the one who needed a blood transfusion, he would have been hooked up in an instant. "Why were you always such a light sleeper?" She rubs at her eyes with one hand. "Your cousin calls you at midnight and you _sleep through it_ , it's like a rule. And you know, you woke me up to tell me Hinata needed you and I didn't even ask why..." She sniffs, biting her lip. "She never told me. I've been too afraid to ask," she whispers her confession, and swallows hard. Scooting ever-so-slightly closer to the gravestone, she closes her eyes painfully tight. "I wish you were here."


End file.
